You have done a dangerous thing! Asking a Jew to give you a recipe, especially when that recipe is for a dish that has been beloved for many generations, is asking not only for a recipe but for a flood of reminiscences that will take you back to his/her childhood, stories of grandparents, of "the old days", and on and on. You luck out this time though, for I shall avoid telling you about Skilowitz' delicatessen on 13th Avenue in Boro Park; I will not tell you about the pickle barrel in George's grocery store; ... I will not even tell you about how Alan Rosen, Steve Brookstone, my cousin RIchard and I once stole two pickled tomatoes each from a totally innocent shop owner in Monticello, New York. Even better....here is the recipe that I use at home.

1. Sterilize a large-mouthed one quart (1 liter) jar. Wash the tomatoes, pat them dry with paper toweling and place them in the jar. Add the garlic cloves, salt, sugar, peppercorns and bay leaf and then pour over the vinegar. Pour in boiling water to fill the jar just to overflowing, let the water settle for 1 minute and then place the bunch of dill on the surface of the water. Close tightly with a top that has been sterilized.

2. Let the jar stand, exposed to light (but avoiding great heat) for 7 days before serving. After opening the pickles should be refrigerated.

You have done a dangerous thing! Asking a Jew to give you a recipe, especially when that recipe is for a dish that has been beloved for many generations, is asking not only for a recipe but for a flood of reminiscences that will take you back to his/her childhood, stories of grandparents, of "the old days", and on and on. You luck out this time though, for I shall avoid telling you about Skilowitz' delicatessen on 13th Avenue in Boro Park; I will not tell you about the pickle barrel in George's grocery store; ... I will not even tell you about how Alan Rosen, Steve Brookstone, my cousin RIchard and I once stole two pickled tomatoes each from a totally innocent shop owner in Monticello, New York. Even better....here is the recipe that I use at home.

BestRogov

(snip)

can I adopt you? those sound like the stories I remember my dad telling - he is still around but is past the story-telling point

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating." -Luciano Pavarotti

Though I pickle my tomatoes without vinegar, I am not going to argue about that fact. But I have a sugestion of a diferent kind. Since you say you have a lot of green tomatoes, I sugest to make geen fried tomatoes. Yum.

Charlie Dawg wrote:Though I pickle my tomatoes without vinegar, I am not going to argue about that fact. But I have a sugestion of a diferent kind. Since you say you have a lot of green tomatoes, I sugest to make geen fried tomatoes. Yum.

I made 20 quarts last night. But no worries, Charlie, I saved the biggest and most beautiful for FGT's.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Ok, now I have to disagree. Half sour are referred to pickles. The true garlic/dill pickles are made without vinegar, because let’s face it where would a poor Jewish woman living in the pail of settlement 100 years ago would find vinegar. All they had was some salt, some dill, and some garlic that she was growing in her small garden. Now, if you add vinegar you pretty much kill innocent cucumber pretty much right on a spot. But if you let it sit in the brine and ferment then you can eat them at any stage and there are stages. And half sour is one of them. There is even more, or rather less sour, like a quarter sour. A lot of people love to eat them that way. Me, I love them when they are so sour that my father calls them death in the jar. So, here is your the answer.

Charlie Dawg wrote:Ok, now I have to disagree. Half sour are referred to pickles. The true garlic/dill pickles are made without vinegar, because let’s face it where would a poor Jewish woman living in the pail of settlement 100 years ago would find vinegar. All they had was some salt, some dill, and some garlic that she was growing in her small garden. Now, if you add vinegar you pretty much kill innocent cucumber pretty much right on a spot. But if you let it sit in the brine and ferment then you can eat them at any stage and there are stages. And half sour is one of them. There is even more, or rather less sour, like a quarter sour. A lot of people love to eat them that way. Me, I love them when they are so sour that my father calls them death in the jar. So, here is your the answer.

Charlie, thank you! I always wondered about that term, and the only "half sours" I've ever had seemed to have had vinegar in them. But then, those came in a jar. In Jewish delis, I'm only familiar with "old" vs. "new". I always ask for new.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Charlie Dawg wrote:Ok, now I have to disagree. Half sour are referred to pickles. The true garlic/dill pickles are made without vinegar, because let’s face it where would a poor Jewish woman living in the pail of settlement 100 years ago would find vinegar. All they had was some salt, some dill, and some garlic that she was growing in her small garden. Now, if you add vinegar you pretty much kill innocent cucumber pretty much right on a spot. But if you let it sit in the brine and ferment then you can eat them at any stage and there are stages. And half sour is one of them. There is even more, or rather less sour, like a quarter sour. A lot of people love to eat them that way. Me, I love them when they are so sour that my father calls them death in the jar. So, here is your the answer.

Charlie, thank you! I always wondered about that term, and the only "half sours" I've ever had seemed to have had vinegar in them. But then, those came in a jar. In Jewish delis, I'm only familiar with "old" vs. "new". I always ask for new, but I'll take anything they've got! Btw: kosher pickles? Best hangover cure EVER.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Now what you've got to do is to find a good Jewish delicatessen, there to buy as many fine frankfurters or knockwurst as you care for, a pile of potato salad, some half-sour sauerkraut, a few kosher pickled cucumbers, some good rye bread and "deli mustard" and to feast on those together with your tomatoes. Be careful though....if ever you should dine that way for three nights in a row, that automatically makes you Jewish.

Daniel Rogov wrote:Now what you've got to do is to find a good Jewish delicatessen, there to buy as many fine frankfurters or knockwurst as you care for, a pile of potato salad, some half-sour sauerkraut, a few kosher pickled cucumbers, some good rye bread and "deli mustard" and to feast on those together with your tomatoes. Be careful though....if ever you should dine that way for three nights in a row, that automatically makes you Jewish.

BestRogov

Rogov, one of the worst things about where I live is that there are no Jewish delis. Making the rounds of the ones in Los Angeles however, when I lived there, was a favorite dine-out option. And in fact, when we're back in Los Angeles, one of our regular things to do is stop at a deli in Encino on our way to LAX. A pastrami sandwich and a bag of pickles for the flight (on which food is no longer served) is a must. Two loaves of good corn rye always come home with me. If there's such a thing as reincarnation, then I was Jewish in a past life.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

And one of the worst things about living in Israel is that there is not a decent hot pastrami sandwich to be found in the entire country!!! Nor a worthy bagel or a half-way decent knish. And, since my wife's aunt died, not a decent koogle in the land!

I never thought I would express my ignorance on this but what are "kosher tomatoes" and why would one pickle tomatoes? Pickled cucumbers, I understand (but the good American kind, not the tiny and sour Israeli kind).

I grew up in America and, occasionally ate in a NY-style deli (in Washington, DC, I admit, not New York), but that tomatoes are anything but the red topping on a salad or burger, perhaps whole, perhaps sliced, perhaps baby, is completely foreign to me.

Avi Hein wrote:I never thought I would express my ignorance on this but what are "kosher tomatoes" and why would one pickle tomatoes? Pickled cucumbers, I understand (but the good American kind, not the tiny and sour Israeli kind).

I grew up in America and, occasionally ate in a NY-style deli (in Washington, DC, I admit, not New York), but that tomatoes are anything but the red topping on a salad or burger, perhaps whole, perhaps sliced, perhaps baby, is completely foreign to me.

Avi, I am but a shicksa (sp?) and cannot speak to the origins or authenticity, but in the Southern California I grew up in, a producer of kosher pickles also made jars of pickled green tomatoes as well as red bell peppers that most supermarkets carried in their cold cases. And I grew up loving them, as I was naturally a fan of anything pickled. Even pigs feet.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Avi Hein wrote:I grew up in America and, occasionally ate in a NY-style deli (in Washington, DC, I admit, not New York), but that tomatoes are anything but the red topping on a salad or burger, perhaps whole, perhaps sliced, perhaps baby, is completely foreign to me.

Avi, Hi.....

First of all, you haven't even started to live if you've never tasted a kosher pickled tomato. Take it from me, pickled tomatoes are a gift from the gods.

Second, what most places call pickles in Israel are horrible little things, with no relationship whatever to Jewish history, culture, sociology or even anthropology. Don't forget though that Israel remains one of the few places in the world where receiving a hot pastrami sandwich on rye or even a good Rueben saudwich is virtually impossible.

Third, when they make me prime minister of Israel I will insist that there be only one national language and that will be the lingua franca at New York Delis. Not "New York style delis. Just plain New York Delis!!!! And yes, that language for Jews, Christians, Moslems, Druse, Bahais, Black Hebrews, and whatever else. When we all start eating kreplach, knishes and kishke the country will be a far, far better place.

I'll go along with the pickled pigs' feet! And indeed pickled pigs' ears and pickled eggs, especially the kinds that were served during those days when one could indeed have a "free lunch" at many bars merely for the price of a single draught beer.

Of course lunch proved anything but free (thus the expression "there ain't no free lunch") because all of the food served was so spicy and so salty that one had to drink a good many beers and perhaps a few "shots" of something stronger as well. On the other hand, for a very young high school student to wander into one of those bars (ideally on Manhattan's 10th or 1st Avenues), to be served his one beer and to then feast on those goodies provided an unforgettable set of memories.

And yes, there are still bars on 10th Avenue that serve pickled pigs feet, pickled eggs and pickled tomatoes.

Oh yes.....please, please don't refer to yourself again as a "shiksa". As someone who is not Jewish, fine, but not as a "shiksa". Even though that word started out in Yiddish as a simple description of a non-Jewish woman, the term has taken on a pejorative meaning and should be seen as no less offensive than terms such as wop, kike and the like. Not at all a matter of political correctness but of simple common courtesy. And if someone refers to you as a shiksa, you have my permission (oyez, even my blessings) to give him/her absolute hell.

I suppose one can argue about authenticity of pickle products all day long. Some claim it to be from Israel, some claim they come from NY delis’. But of course we all know that the real kosher pickles and pickled tomatoes, the pickled cabbage and the pickled watermelons of course come from Ukraine. That’s where I am from.

I have to agree with Daniel, pickled tomatoes are heavenly. I pickle my own cucumbers and tomatoes for the winter. I usually make 2-3 times as much tomato as I make pickles because they are so much better.

Charlie! Charlie! Quick, tell me how to make pickles without vinegar!I don't like vinegar in my pickles AT ALL. Dill weed, garlic and cucumbers came in my farm stand box today, and I have green tomatoes too. I know it's more complicated pickling without vinegar, so help would be appreciated.